National Blog

800,000 people leave workforce in April

The unemployment rate for April plunged to 6.3 percent after 800,000 people left the labor force. The government defines the unemployment rate as the number of people actively looking for work divided by the labor force (those currently working + those actively looking for work). From Bloomberg:

The drop in the unemployment rate from March’s 6.7 percent came as the agency’s survey of households showed the labor force shrank by more the 800,000 in April. The so-called participation rate, which indicates the share of working-age people in the labor force, decreased to 62.8 percent, matching the lowest level since 1978, from 63.2 percent a month earlier.